PATIENTS and staff at Southampton General Hospital have been struck down with a new bug causing severe diarrhoea and vomiting.

Hospital chiefs confirmed to the Daily Echo that a small number of patients and staff in the 25-bed, F2 general orthopaedic unit had been infected by the new viral strain.

A total of eight patients are suffering with the bug and three members of staff are off work because of sickness, but hospital management said that the infection had been contained within the ward.

The new viral infection was reported to hospital bosses last Friday by members of the in-house infection control department.

The fresh bug outbreak comes less than three months after the Norwalk winter vomiting virus swept through the hospital infecting more than 80 patients and nurses.

A hospital spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that a virus which causes diarrhoea and vomiting was detected among a small number of patients in the F2 ward on Friday. Since then every measure has been taken to keep it under control, including the restriction of admissions into the ward and increased cleaning rounds.

"The bug is under control."

May Waters, 71, and husband Alan, 79, from New Milton, had been visiting daughter Anthea, 38, in the F2 ward at the General Hospital after she suffered severe internal injuries in a car accident on the A35 west of Lyndhurst last weekend.

May said: "I am very worried about how the virus could harm Anthea's recovery. We visited her on Friday afternoon and the patient in the bed next to her was vomiting and in a bad way. We understand that four patients and three medical staff have caught the bug."

Alan added: "There was a strange odour in the ward and it was very unnerving watching people being sick so close to our daughter. The last thing she needs in her current condition is to catch this virus."

Another hospital source claimed the diarrhoea and vomiting bug was "not on the scale" of the non life-threatening Norwalk winter vomiting virus that infected 65 patients and 22 nurses in October this year.

The outbreak of the virus, which spreads easily on hands and equipment, saw patients from several wards, including a heart ward, isolated in two wards.

The Norwalk virus also reached the Isle of Wight earlier this year, where five patients at St Mary's Hospital in Newport were isolated.

In Dorset, Royal Bournemouth Hospital had to close many wards and reduce emergency admissions after the Norwalk virus spread through the site.